Transport Properties of Concrete

Conclusions, recommendations and guidance for measuring transport properties of concrete

The state of the art

It is concluded that, in the century since the transport processes were first analysed, much progress has been made but much remains to be done. It is clear that the tests that measure these processes should give true values for the basic properties such as permeability and diffusion coefficient and that models which predict performance should use them.

The process of using diffusion coefficients to measure durability is a good example of where progress needs to be made. It has been shown that none of the tests in current use gives a true measure of the diffusion coefficient because they rely on the solution of Fick’s law for a single ...